


and life goes on (let me warm your numb hands)

by randomicicle



Category: Gokusen - All Media Types
Genre: Babies, M/M, Podfic Available, Podfic Length: 1-1.5 Hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-05 15:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/408091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomicicle/pseuds/randomicicle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hayato has a baby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ⇒ **Written for** : [Pat](http://misao-duo.livejournal.com/), @ [Kizuna Exchange 2012](http://kizuna-exchange.livejournal.com/69860.html) (originally posted [here](http://kizuna-exchange.livejournal.com/66341.html))
> 
> ⇒ **Podfic** [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/399578) by the wonderful [adistantsun](http://adistantsun.livejournal.com/) ♥
> 
> ⇒ **Title+OST** : _drinking warm soup when the night comes, for tomorrow too will surely be cold_ \- [Ai ni Tsuite](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xo7krr_sub-kazuya-kamenashi-and-shikao-suga-ai-ni-tsuite_music), and all [Diana Krall](http://www.youtube.com/user/DianaKrallVEVO).

 

 

It's Tsucchi who tells him. There is some veiled accusation in his tone, but he is Tsucchi and everything is fine as long as his fan isn't pointed at Ryu's chest. The fact his hair is gently framing his face makes him less menacing than the spike-headed punk that towered above everyone in high school.

"Saya is three months old, Ryu."

Ryu wants to laugh, he really wants to.

Instead, he asks for Hayato's address.

 

 

+

 

 

The slowing footsteps give him away. His hands, thrust deep inside his coat pockets, feel cold and clammy, fingers numb; he wishes he wasn't wearing gloves so he could at least feel the skin of his fingers touching. A tall two-headed figure appears at the end of the hallway dragging two bags with it, and stops two meters away from the doorstep Ryu has been staring at, willing it to miraculously open.

"Odagiri."

It's like conjuring his father. And maybe that's how Ryu looks now. Old and stoic and all costumed up in a clean-cut suit that feels itchy around the edges, on his elbows and behind his knees. He came straight from work and it's _cold_.

"Yabuki."

Nostalgia washes over him as they stare in silence; it leaves his skin dry and a metallic taste on his tongue. He feels restricted, chest tightening. Static sounds echo around him and Hayato is not _moving_.

Then the second head moves and babbles, and it all snaps. Hayato hurries to the door, goes inside.

He doesn't close it behind him, so Ryu follows.

 

 

+

 

 

"She's asleep," is the second thing Hayato says to him that night. This is unfamiliar, the stiffness in his back. Ryu moves awkwardly when Hayato passes by him, like he's been burned, and Hayato avoids a glance that is both questioning and stroppy.

Ryu peeks inside the darkened bedroom. There's a bundle of pink blankets inside a fortress made of pillows in the middle of the futon, and it doesn't make much sense how Hayato is so gentle when he tugs on her blankets. There is softness to his movements that wasn't there before.

Not that Ryu would know.

Hayato shifts between watching the kettle, dishevelling his hair, and staring at the spot on the floor Ryu has settled on, like Ryu would jump up and steal something before running off. The last time Ryu saw him, his hair was longer and untamed, not this light, barely hiding Hayato's neckline and the rigid set of his spine as he taps fingers on the counter.

He says thanks for the cup of tea when Hayato sits in front of him, and wants to snort about what a good host he has become.

Hayato stares.

"So you're back."

Ryu swallows. Like a bomb dropping on a rice field in the middle of the night. And Hayato never stops staring.

The laughter startles him.

"You bastard, you should've told me sooner," he tells him, and Ryu doesn't get it, how Hayato is laughing without laughter, and saying they ought to _celebrate_. It's simple and tempting to curl his mouth up in a smile, neither fight nor question but shrug it off, say he's been back for less than a week and Tsucchi was the only one who'd kept the same phone number.

(He doesn't say Tsucchi is the only one he contacted, and Hayato's eyes tell him he sees through the lie, but Hayato doesn't call him on it)

And it's easy, _so_ easy, to play the fool and smile; eat combini bentos under their hushed slanted conversation and drink the cheap beer Hayato keeps in his small fridge. He enjoys it, the fleeting moment where Hayato is content just eating, and Ryu is a regular teacher back from grad school, and everything is bright and funny, sugar-coated and warmly fragile.

"Back for good or just -?"

"I'm teaching here this year," Ryu replies, and it could mean anything. That's why he's all dressed up, he wants to add. That's why he has a suit, feet clad in polished black leather shoes and hair cut, unbleached, and combed. Ryu looks older than Hayato, in his worn-out trousers and large navy sweater.

He feels ancient.

"An all-boys high school. Ryujin."

Hayato chuckles, relaxing slightly. "3D?"

Ryu smiles, pushes the asparagus and tomatoes neatly out of his box. "Almost. 2D."

It is too comfortable to play pretend and remember when they were the kids, when they spent hours sitting around playing Tekken on Ryu's old console. He pretends it doesn't sink low in his stomach, seeing the lines of politeness on Hayato's face that were never there before.

He leaves when they run out of beer and memories that are only happy. Hayato fakes a yawn, too large, too loud (because Hayato may think otherwise but his acting is crap), and that is Ryu's cue to leave.

"It was good to see you."

Hayato nods. "You too."

On his way to the station, Ryu replays that last look in the genkan again and again and _again_. His hands are colder and clammier, stomach tied in heavy knots; he keeps seeing _relief_.

 

 

+

 

 

The first punch had hurt. Never as much as his chest being torn apart, but Hayato packed a mean punch. His father's words buzzed in his mind, clear and cold. "A fight seems more important than you, I see," he had said, and Ryu flinched because he didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to _think_ about it, even though this was his father and he'd never get it.

" _Those_ are your friends".

It was not by chance he found Frentzen.

Ryu had wanted to fill his mind with _something_. Otherwise, all he saw were two little kids with huge overused markers, milkshakes split in two tiny cups, and a white sheet of paper where a scrawny Ryu was holding hands with a (rather disproportionately) tall Hayato, huge toothy grins on both their faces. Hayato had said they would be friends forever; that nothing in the world would ever, _ever_ , tear them apart.

That was the first broken promise that hurt.

 

 

+

 

 

He really thought he wouldn't hear from Hayato again for a long time. Stupid _confusing_ hard-to-deal-with Hayato whom he'd last spoken to years ago, before barging on his place with combini bento and stories that were never told.

"You're such a bastard," slurs the voice on the phone. "You- _fuck_ , jerk, leaving like that. You- I hate you. _Asshole_."

Ryu is paralyzed.

He only hangs up after the dial tone has been beeping for a while.

 

 

+

 

 

"Isn't she the cutest?!" coos Take over the baby's bassinet, out of place with the cans of beer open in front of them. Her name _is_ Saya, but Ryu's mind keeps calling her _the baby_ , as if that would put a barrier between them. A part of Hayato's life he doesn't want to comment on nor deal with; like Take's girlfriends he used to barely tolerate. Or Hyuuga's hideous shirts.

Only she is a little baby girl, and Ryu knows he is being irrational.

Tsucchi bumps against his side when he moves; no one pays attention to the beer sloshed on Ryu's pants.

"She's grown so much, Hayato," he says. Her hands look like a doll's; fingers wrapped tightly around one of Tsucchi's, but can't yet close completely around it. Take bats his hands in front of her, willing her to grab his fingers too.

Hayato preens.

Ryu sits there awkwardly, in silence, playing with the can of beer dangling from his hand. It goes unnoticed because it has always been like this; his quiet unassuming presence in the middle of the entire hubbub. But it has never felt like this before. This detachment. He almost wants to thank Hayato ( _Take_ , not Hayato; it was Take who invited him) and go home.

Tsucchi plays with a stuffed duck, making silly face as it flies above the bassinet, and Take's baby talk starts to drill through his brain like a high-pitched scream directly in his ears when Hayato stands and goes to get the takoyaki leftovers. He doesn't realize it's Saya who wails until Hayato rushes back and pushes him further to the side to pick her up, brow furrowed in concern. "Hey, baby, what's wrong?"

Ryu is tempted to move further away, but she opens her eyes. Large and brown and baby-like, looking straight at him. Ryu feels, more than sees, four pairs of eyes on him in the middle of the sudden careful silence, Saya's teary wails reduced to nothing but big-eyed curiosity pinning him down all the way from Hayato's arms.

Ryu squirms.

She giggles. And bounces a little. Her chubby hand jerks against Hayato's jawbone.

" _Mouuu_ … girls always like Ryu the most!"

They laugh, and ignore Hayato's complaints, how he moves and Saya loses sight of Ryu (and groanwails until he's back in her sight). Tsucchi pokes his shoulder, tells Take not to despair, that he has a _wife_. Ryu focuses on the pocketsize human in Hayato's arms, covered in a blue onesie with bright red trucks; there's a spit bubble at the corner of her mouth. It pops.

He snorts, but he's smiling.

She giggles again.

 

 

+

 

 

If Hayato wants to play pretend, Ryu is fine with that.

He used to think, back in Vancouver, and especially during particularly bad snowstorms, that he should call. He tried not to think of the irony, the years spent fighting with all his might to stay as far away from Canada as possible and then how he'd latched onto the opportunity; tried not to think of his father's surprised (but approving) face when he mentioned it, or his mom's soft smile, and how she used to smooth his hair when it was bedtime and tell him she and his father knew better, always did.

Instead, he'd focused on his reasons, but the need was still there, titillating and exploding. He'd brave the wind outside and find a convenience store that sold long distance phonecards, nose red and ears hurting behind the snow mask. Back in his shared apartment, he'd tuck his legs under himself on the sofa, fingers playing with the phone cord of the old landline they had there. When he was feeling braver, he would get as a far as entering the code and phone number. The call had gone through just once…

… straight to a voicemail.

(He'd never considered time zones, given the fickle nature of the calls)

Ryu never really admitted it, but there were times the ache had been like a hollow pitch in his stomach that he'd filled with Coronas and Marlboros and Kitkats; and typing emails that remained stuck on his draft box.

That hollow pitch had turned into a huge black hole he'd satiated with memories during forlorn wintry nights. He would dream of sitting in that patch of grass those rare times it was just the two of them, where Hayato had allowed himself to mourn his mom and Ryu had admitted it was his dad's fingers imprinted on his cheek; where they first made plans to move in together after graduation, and Ryu would go to college and Hayato would get a job at Kuma's and become honorary chef (or employee of the month).

He'd always woken up drenched in cold sweat, and with a wider dark gap in the middle of his chest.

It was the worst fucking time of his life.

 

 

+

 

 

Take emailed him about Hayato's wedding.

He never got an invitation.

 

 

+

 

 

Ryu came back in July. It was ridiculously hot. And nothing was the same.

 

 

+

 

 

It's a couple of days after, while he's planning a math lesson on square roots and imaginary numbers, that his phone vibrates on his study desk. Ryu keeps his books sprawled on the floor because it's easier to focus when his desk is clear and tidy, and having his everyday work there would mean a constant eye-level mess. He piles them up underneath once he's done, chair hiding them from view, and works lying on his futon, pens and markers and post-it notes scattered, a habit he picked up when Matt-the-roommate started an internship at 3M and got a ridiculous amount of free notepads.

"Hey," Hayato's voice says. There's the sound of a door and microwave buttons, and Saya jabbers nonsense in the background; Hayato must be making her formula. He hesitates, but Ryu waits patiently. Hayato used to call without being sure whether he had something to say or not, and Ryu had learned to keep the phone close even when it was silent and expectant.

"Sa-chan seemed to like you, so…"

Ryu doesn't ask whether Hayato feels the same way. _Still_ feels the same way.

He nods in understanding. "Is Friday okay?"

The beep of the microwave is louder than Hayato's silence, or else he's just distracted while balancing the phone and Saya and a bottle of formula because it sounds like he dropped the phone.

"Yes," comes a bit later, kind of hurried and distant. Ryu is probably on speaker now. "I have to pick her up from Taku's, but we could have lunch?"

"We could, yes."

Ryu can't focus on complex numbers after that.

 

 

+

 

 

Complex numbers are stupid anyway.

 

 

+

 

 

He asks for the afternoon off that Friday because he forgot he does have a full-time job now. The director frowns upon him, the new teacher that is far too young and doesn't wear formal suits but sweaters and boots; who looks 22 when he's nearing 30, and just came back from overseas with a diploma that says he ought to be paid more while he experiments with all these 'new' methods that are borderline outside the curricula of a pretty plain high school math class.

She grudgingly agrees when he says he only has hallway duty and that Megumi-san volunteered to cover for him.

(The director frowns deeper and mumbles, annoyed, about doting teachers and responsibilities and how Ryu shouldn't get used to this. Ryu takes it in solemn silence because he has learned that there are fights not worth fighting if he has already won what matters.)

He stops by a store on his way to Hayato's. He grimaces at his account balance, but still gets veggies and noodles and some kind of meat he finds on sale. Beers, too. There is a tiny store hidden between a large boutique and a corporative-looking building. The girl behind the counter seems more focused on her idol magazine than the customers, unplugged from the world with her ear buds in, so it takes Ryu three tries to steal her attention from the glittery pop idols she's scanning. Grudgingly, she stands up and grabs the item from the window case, wraps it up in brown crinkly paper, and Ryu side eyes the blue string she ties it with but thinks it may be counterproductive to ask for another one.

Laden with bags and boxes on Hayato's doorstep, he almost turns around.

"You arrived," Hayato greets. He seems surprised Ryu is there, and his expression matches Ryu's in his shock. Ryu hasn't seen Hayato's hair clipped back in over ten years.

"What's all that?"

Ryu shifts, shuffling out of his shoes as Hayato takes the bag with the veggies. "Food," he replies, shoves the brown paper package with the sketchy blue string at Hayato's chest. "This is for her."

It's light, and Ryu stops feeling like an idiot when Hayato grins, hovering above Saya's pack-and-play, and telling her "uncle Ryu brought her a present".

Ryu hears the paper tearing up while he stacks the beers in the fridge, and Hayato ignores him in favour of Saya's delighted giggles. She's too tiny yet, too fragile, and drools and babbles nonsense, but her little arms packed with baby fat weave in the air where the turtle plushie flies above her.

She gurgles, and closes her fist on the tail.

"It's safe," Ryu explains when three quarters of turtle nose end up in Saya's mouth. "I checked."

Hayato nods. His eyes are soft, little wrinkles around his eyes smoothed out in a way that is still unfamiliar for Ryu. He only spares him a glance, murmurs, "Thank you," and it's still awkward, maybe, but not so much. Not anymore.

 

 

+

 

 

To be honest, Ryu wouldn't mind being _uncle Ryu_.

 

 

+

 

 

They aren't done yet when Saya demands to be carried out of the pack-and-play. It has a removable bassinet and a changer and musical mobile figures on top. Hayato mentions he bought it at some sketchy place where foreigners get rid of things before leaving the country. It's second-hand, but in a good enough condition and all Saya has in the place, furniture-wise. Hayato's bedroom though is packed with large diaper bags and piles of pastel garments and clean cotton towels and bedsheets and pillowcases.

She wails loud enough to startle them both and Hayato picks her up, pressing his hollow, pale face to the baby's cheek. He pats and coos at her, looks gentler than he's ever looked.

There's a softness in his hands that reminds Ryu of Hayato's mom.

Saya is some months old; and has fat little cheeks and fat tiny arms and legs and toes that look like a doll's. A miniature version of what Hayato could've been as a baby, and she looks like him, vaguely. Ryu never knew her mom, but hopes she takes after her dad. She has large avid eyes that stare intensely at everything.

Except when Ryu is around. Then, she only stares at him.

"Told you," Hayato snickers casually. He comes closer and Ryu's stomach tightens. "Hold her?"

It's like carrying a crystal doll packed in water balloons. Ryu doesn't know where or how to hold her and Hayato laughs at him, moves his hand to the back of her neck and the small of her back, and Ryu stops holding his breath when Saya doesn't seem about to slip from his hands and twist away to the floor like a slinky. She grips his shirt instinctively, probably feeling Ryu's incompetence in baby carrying, and Ryu brushes the thin hair at the base of her neck, feels the soft skin and the warm dribble that falls on his shoulder.

He looks up, and Hayato is staring. His eyes, for once, disclose nothing.

"I didn't know you were this bad with babies."

Ryu scowls.

(He's not really angry)

 

 

+

 

 

Weeks go by and Ryu goes from school to his one room apartment to school again the next day. He eyes his phone and jumps with each call, expectation pooling like an obnoxious poking stomach bug. He gets a message from Take once saying he's sitting for Saya-chan on a Friday night ( _sHE IS SOOoo cute ! ! !_ ) and Ryu is in an awful mood all weekend because Take is old and still texts like a 15 year-old bimbo, and Hayato didn't call _him_ and went out and left Saya with Take and his wife when she obviously would've preferred to stay with Ryu.

Then he gets mad for getting mad about that.

He makes a pretty impossible test for that Monday, which 80% of the class fails, and ends up taking home almost 20 optional essays on angles and Cartesian planes and things he _hates_. It's all Hayato's fault.

 

 

+

 

 

It's Sunday and his head throbs. The izakaya pub last night had been unavoidable, one of those times he wasn't fast enough to decline his co-workers' insistence with a quick-witted excuse. He'd ended up numbing himself with sake to the impossibly dull chitchat and gossip about students and staff and future plans he had no intention being a part of.

He groans again and rolls over, a sharp ringing drilling inside his head, and dully remembers taking a cab home with another teacher (Sakamoto-san?) and being helped up the stairs. He doesn't remember anything past the foyer and would've cursed, but that damned ringing slices through his brain again.

Hayato looks angry.

"What is the matter with you?!" he demands as soon as he crosses the genkan. His voice is too loud, so loud Vancouver Matt probably heard him, so Ryu closes his eyes and leans against the wall.

Hayato huffs. "You reek of alcohol."

Ryu groans again, fingers pressing on the arch of his nose, for a moment cursing Hayato's Father of the Year tone. It's such a bizarre situation he would laugh if his skull weren't threatening to split in half at the thought.

"Let me shower," he mumbles, and maybe it's his voice, hoarse and miserable, that makes Hayato nod with pursed lips and plop down on the dining room floor.

The shower helps a bit. At least he doesn't feel disgusting anymore.

"Here," Hayato hands him a mug of coffee and his stomach twists. Coffee doesn't sit well with him and hangovers; he needs rice and water, and maybe some really cold Coke, but he still takes a sip from it. The acrid taste makes him frown, and Hayato glares at his disgusted face when he pushes the coffee across the counter and as far away from him as possible.

He doesn't stop the glowering.

"What?" Ryu asks.

_It's too early for this_.

"What do you mean _what_?" Hayato snaps. More like explodes. Ryu is scared he may actually need to argue. "You vanished, you _jerk_."

Ryu lowers his gaze and it makes his brain press against the front of his skull. It hurts, but it's _better_.

"For two fucking years. Gone. From the face of the Earth- what the fuck, Ryu?!"

It cuts so deep he cringes. Ryu sighs audibly, shaky, and rests his face on the balls of his hands, elbows set on the counter.

"What do you want, Hayato?"

Hayato's glare only intensifies.

"An explanation. Obviously."

Ironic, that the one thing he can't explain comes rushing to smack him in the face.

"You got married-"

"You VANISHED."

Ryu grunts, scrunches up his shoulders as if making himself tiny enough would help him disappear. It's hard to explain how he had needed that, a trip to neverwhere when he touched a wall; no family, no friends, no undesirable feelings or thoughts. That scholarship had been a lifesaver in the middle of an open sea storm that no one had seemed to spot.

"What happened?" Hayato presses, and Ryu feels cornered even though Hayato hasn't moved an inch. "What was so bad? Why did I never hear a word about it?"

"It- I don't know," he starts, and he's honest, but Hayato flares up again. "But not you. It was not you."

There _is_ something that makes Ryu scared of Hayato sometimes, of what flashes behind his eyes that unveils everything he is capable of. Which is silly, because Ryu can match that and more, but Ryu doesn't lie to himself nowadays. Hayato shouldn't be scary to him; not junior high scary anymore. He also shouldn't look as if he'll throw himself across the table and either strangle or ravish him.

He does neither.

Instead, he draws a large intake of breath, too big and too loud, like he wants to empty and replace himself with air. His hand is trembling when he stands up and walks to Ryu's tiny balcony full of drying laundry.

"You're a bastard, you know that."

Ryu nods, because he is and he knows it. Hayato isn't looking at him though; he sits on the balcony floor and Ryu brings his legs closer to his chest to warm himself up. He stares at the street below, at the smoke outlined against the greying morning as Hayato lights up the first cigarette.

They haven't shared one in ages.

 

 

+

 

 

If someone asked Ryu to describe their relationship, Hayato and Ryu, he would say _quiet_. It sounds like a joke, with how loud and boisterous Hayato can be, but Ryu knows better.

He is thinking along the lines of their usual rendezvous, way more frequent back when Ryu was in college and Hayato only had to worry about himself and his third of the expenses at home. How they consisted of sitting close and sharing extended silences while they drank the pineapple Calpis Hayato was obsessed with. It has always been about patting his back without being told to, or backing each other up in mindless fights. It was like that before Hayato was bullied, became a bully, and especially after Yabuki-mama died. He remembers the full body warmth, and how it became the warmth he compares all warmth to. That clingy hug with Hayato after running out onto the street, to the spot she used to bring them to collect snails when they'd just met and she was wearing that beautiful bright floral dress that made her the most beautiful and perfect and coolest mom in the whole world (she was always like that no matter which dress she wore, but Ryu thought she looked especially awesome in it).

Ryu's mom had understood his distress, but his father had thought it stupid, a kid's thing, worrying over other's tragedies that had nothing to do with them.

(His father was so evil back then)

They had hugged, Hayato clutching Ryu's shirt like a drowning man, and Ryu had cried soundlessly on Hayato's shoulder.

They don't talk about it.

They don't talk about a lot of things. But a small touch on the inside of his wrist, a hand on his elbow, a sustained gaze-

It used to be enough.

 

 

+

 

 

"What happened?"

Ryu raises his head. He's been lying on his floor, curled up near the kotatsu now because it got chilly.

"To us?" Hayato adds and looks down at him from his place on the balcony. He's on his third cigarette and Ryu wants to ask if this is because he can't smoke around Saya. He shakes his head when Hayato extends it toward him. "We used to be _Hayato and Ryu_."

"Now we're Hayato… _and_ Ryu," Hayato adds.

Ryu chuckles softly, but Hayato's face is solemn and quite upset. His face is curled in an angry grimace, and Ryu smiles, salty and sad. Hayato turns to him again; it's fierce and it chills him. Ryu sighs.

And just like that, Hayato puffs his cheeks, nostrils flaring, and a dead tense silence falls over both of them. The dim light colours them purple and orange, and Ryu sees Hayato's grip tighten on his arm, wonders if it'll leave angry, reddening crescent marks on his skin. His sweater looks very thick though.

When Hayato turns again, he looks deflated and blue, and Ryu pushes up on his left arm.

"An entire decade…" he mumbles. Then he laughs, breathy, sans humour. "Yankumi would be ashamed."

Ryu smirks. It's bittersweet but it closes the cycle. Words remain unsaid, but this time, they both get it.

 

 

+

 

 

There used to be a small spot of grass behind some large water containers that was perfect for looking over everything without being disturbed. Ivy had crawled up the concrete structures and kept it mostly hidden and much like a real hideout.

Ryu goes there, wonders if it's still there, and gasps in delight when it is. He doesn't care about his trousers getting grass stained, and sits there, thinking. Wondering. He remembers the five of them here, ditching classes and smoking cigarettes they could get because they were so cool, and drinking the beer Hyuuga managed to sneak out of his house. How different they were from those other times, when he'd lain with Hayato in absolute silence.

It was some time after Kudo's mess that they had come together, alone, and sat here; elbows on knees, exhaustion and relief tightly entwined in their bellies. Hayato's fingertips were sudden, feathery light on his spine. He didn't look at Ryu, and Ryu never really turned to look back at him lying on the grass beside, but the memory of warm spots on his back is clear and heavily imprinted on his mind, and comes fleeting and vivid when he thinks of warm, and calm, and _safe_.

Three wuthering lines along the bare skin at the small of his back, and Hayato's steady breathing, the smell of grass mingling with the moist scent of morning dew, and the blinding light of the sun despite being quite cold.

Ryu lies back on the grass now, extends a hand over the empty patch of grass on his left. And wishes Hayato were there.

 

 

+

 

 

It becomes a pattern.

After Hayato walks out of Ryu's that day to pick up Saya from Taku's, and Ryu doesn't hear from them for a couple of weeks. Saya is so much bigger when he sees her again, he wants to complain about it, but what is that, really (and who is _he_ to complain)? She doesn't seem to recognize him at first, just as Hayato laughs at his shorter hair.

"School regulations," Ryu grunts, fingers self-consciously moving up to touch the shorter locks curling near his ear.

Hayato smirks. "Since when do you follow _school regulations_?"

Ryu snorts. He thinks about Yankumi and stuff.

"Since they pay me for it."

And before Hayato launches into an indignant speech, he makes sure to entertain himself with Saya and her newly acquired toy snake. She seems to love it, though whether that's due to the bright colours or how it twists all awkward and jerky when she shakes it around is a mystery.

Ryu still stops by the grocery store, and Hayato makes Saturdays their day. Then, it's also Tuesdays and sometimes Thursdays because he lost one of his part-time jobs and Ryu doesn't have to be in school so late into the afternoon (Hayato denies this and insists he quit, but Ryu catches him frowning at the bills and scrawling sloppy numbers with red ink on the envelopes; numbers 1 and 3 had been taken care of, but there were still a couple pending). Ryu rearranges his own budget; sometimes, on Tuesdays, he buys enough to last until he comes back on Saturdays.

It is an odd pattern because they never discuss it. Ever. And Ryu doesn't want them to. He's tired, and Hayato seems content, Saya on his knee, arms spread out like a plane while she giggles and kicks the air beneath her feet.

As he sits down, latex gloves now near the sink, he frowns at the tiny speakers near the pair and hopes Hayato will get the message. There's a demented song looping on the player because some lady in a second-hand store told them it was some kind of program for child stimulation.

"It only stimulates suicidal tendencies," Hayato huffs. And puts on some idol band that, for Ryu, sounds exactly the same.

 

 

+

 

 

Ryu watches Hayato curl up in the futon around Saya, a huge round lump of faded green cuddling a freshly soft fluffy white bundle with yellow and pink dots. She is asleep, but her face is turned towards Hayato, her little fists close to her chest even though her body is slightly turned. There's a trail of drool on Hayato's left cheek and Ryu laughs softly.

When he grabs Saya, is Hayato who stirs and wakes up, instantly alert.

"It's me," Ryu whispers, and smiles when Saya curls in on herself in his arms. She doesn't wake up, nor does Hayato move.

"Tired?" Ryu doesn't ask, but Hayato squeezes his eyes tights before stretching. He doesn't need to ask.

"I'm exhausted," he puffs out and bonelessly rolls onto his back. The futon is for two; that's Saya and Hayato. Ryu feels like he's intruding, even though it was Hayato who opened the door.

"How were _your_ kids?"

Someone had set fire to a notebook in the back, broken a window during lunch and he found a large obscene chalk drawing on the board. "The same," he mutters, because they were not as wild as they once were; his kids were just immature, not unnecessary active. They were too lazy to be delinquents.

Hayato sneers. And it's like a night at his dad's again, when Ryu sneaked through the window and they snuggled on Hayato's tiny futon. Back then, it wasn't as warm though, he didn't have a soft bundle breathing against his collarbone.

When fingers stretch to brush over the tiny tresses of hair, they brush Ryu's jaw, innocently. Hayato doesn't seem to notice.

It definitely wasn't as warm back then.

 

 

+

 

 

It's an emergency, he says. His shift was changed last minute and no one can take care of Saya and it's Friday so Ryu doesn't have to wake up early the next day.

Ryu doesn't think twice (and it's not like he has time to before Hayato hangs up). He feels oddly satisfied that he won't be getting Take's emoji-infested texts on how cute Saya is during his sessions as self-appointed Master of Babysitters.

(In a normal world, no 30 year-old would boast about _that_ , but this is Take and Ryu and Hayato, and competition is always more important than what it is they're competing over)

Saya has wispy black hair so thin she looks bald. Ryu imagines she'd look cute with scrunchies and headbands and Take's barrettes. Hayato thinks she's the cutest bald baby in the world. They both buy her beanies and knitted hats until she has a small tiny pile of pastel-coloured headwear on top of Hayato's dresser. Ryu eyes the basket with freshly washed pocket-sized onesies and makes a tiny pyramid on top out of the tiny folded socks he's rolling into tiny cotton balls. Saya is fast asleep on his chest.

He falls asleep without noticing.

Hours later, his eyes feel heavy. There's an opaque cold light glowing behind the too-thin curtains of Hayato's bedroom, and a warmth in the middle of his chest that surrounds him with a sweet peachy scent as soon as he breathes in. There's another, larger, presence beside him; Hayato's hair tickles his jaw, because it's long again and he doesn't tie it up when he sleeps. His arm is heavy over Ryu's stomach, but his fingers curl delicately around one of Saya's cotton-clad feet, thumb moving soothingly up and down, sliding against Ryu's belly sometimes, fleetingly.

Ryu squirms, pretends to wake up, and Hayato stirs. His hand moves up to rub circles on Saya's back and only then, Ryu dares to open one eye.

A definitely gross shabby Hayato smirks sloppily at him, still a little sleepy.

" 'morning," he mumbles half into the pillows.

And Ryu is back in free-fall again.

 

 

+

 

 

Ryu levels Hayato with a glare. _The hell was that?_ is what he's aiming to get across.

Hayato's wide eyes seem not to understand what tiny scrawny Ryu is so horrified about, because he keeps saying it was only tongue in cheek and friends do it all the time, he's seen it _on TV_ , and Ryu "is _so dumb_ ".

They're 11. And they are starting to get love letters; scraps of paper with pink and red scribbles from girls that have pretty ponytails, whose voices Ryu can't remember nor can he recognize. Hayato's mom, according to Hayato, told him that once you have those special rings, the love letters will stop, and so –since Ryu could very well do without them- he agrees.

He's not so sure anymore.

It's not long before they both notice how their pinky rings don't stop the letters. Hayato insists they must have done something wrong because Hayato's mama is wise and perfect and she shows them an old and painfully boring VCR.

(Ryu wants to say Yabuki-mama looks like a princess, but he doesn't want Hayato to mock him for it.)

They notice their mistake though; and decide to try again.

Ryu closes his eyes and concentrates, _really_ concentrates, on the super special powers their rings should have (because Yabuki-mama also talked about support and _love_ and tons of other warm pretty things Ryu heard about in movies and felt when she patted his head after he'd helped her set the table, while Hayato chased Taku around trying put a stocking on his head, because he wanted to see how Taku would look bald).

Then Hayato's lips touch his. And he loses all focus. There is nothing but a large white buzzing, and Hayato's lips are feathery light, barely, _barely_ there, and everything is yucky and stupid all of a sudden.

The rings never work. Hayato is mad at his mom for _days_.

Ryu never tells him it's his fault they don't have super magical rings. Instead, he hides the letters he finds on his desk or in Hayato's locker, until Hayato thinks they have _some_ power after all and makes Ryu promise to never, ever, take his off.

 

 

+

 

 

Ryu never does. But he exchanges it for a larger one when his hands are not an 11 year-old's anymore.

(He still keeps that first one.)

 

 

+

 

 

"Your dad got married," Ryu mutters.

He's looking down at Saya, sleeping peacefully on the futon. She's all wrapped up in that Doraemon blanket Hayato found on an old part-time job housekeeping at a hotel. It was forgotten and unclaimed ("and clean! I washed it _twice_!"). It's all blue and red and yellow, and the only bright colourful spot in the otherwise pale messy bedroom. Saya is clutching her turtle plushie by the neck because her hands are not so tiny anymore, only chubby, and the nose is oddly discoloured in patches where the fabric has given out under the relentless drool attacks. Saya sighs, low and wheezy, head turning into the fist trapping the toy; Ryu strokes her back until she settles again.

"I did," comes from the door. It startles Ryu. Hayato's arms are crossed, his face obscure with the contrast of the brightly lit room behind him. "You weren't there."

_You weren't here_ , is what Ryu hears.

His face is all kinds of soft when he pushes himself off the doorframe, and crouches next to Ryu.

"Not invited," Ryu whispers, and arranges the pillows around her. Hayato gives him a look Ryu ignores, and rubs his temples. "I'm going," he mutters.

It has a sense of finality, as it ought to, only it feels wrong. But Ryu has an apartment that is not this one but a larger one, without strewn cubes and half-chewed turtles and giraffes and baby seals in the dining room. One so cold and empty he dreads, but owns, and it's like Hayato's has come to mean 'home' all over again.

"You could stay," Hayato murmurs back in the genkan, back to the wall, crossed arms over his chest and sounding too casual to _be_ casual.

Ryu turns with an incredulous eyebrow arched, and reaches for the doorknob, but Hayato stops him. His presence lingers heavily on Ryu's back, his breath warm and nervous on his neck, and Ryu feels the weight of the words as Hayato presses his forehead to Ryu's hair. Hayato's hand doesn't move from the door; keeping it locked like everything else around them.

"You should stay," Hayato repeats.

Ryu sees the downward spiral in front of him, but pushes lightly against Hayato's chest and, for a second, he is not free-falling anymore.

 

 

+

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

"Remember when Taku was born?"

Hayato nods. The memory of badly crayon-shaped baby faces sneaks inside his mind and Ryu stretches his legs. Saya bats her arms between Hayato's legs and falls on her bum again.

Ryu pushes his books with his knee closer, a tiny tower of support she eyes with a suspicious tilt of her head.

"He was all ugly and funny looking," Hayato mumbles distractedly as Saya balances on the books, her legs wobbly. His hands linger on her sides, oddly protective, as if she'd fall and break a leg.

Ryu twirls the pen on his hand, chews on the tip. "He was fun."

Saya's bum fall shadows Hayato's snort. She frowns at him, or at somewhere above her head, and throws her arms into the air. Hayato's bitter, " _I_ was fun, he was annoying," doesn't match the softness with which he leans forward and makes her frown disappear, makes her giggle, and moves back to the books.

Ryu puts another one on top of that pile.

"You both were fun," he murmurs, and Hayato finally glares at him. "We were little."

Hayato's reply stays on the tip of his tongue because Saya stands up, blocking him from Ryu's view. Ryu snorts at his squeals of delight, and she rushes to Hayato's happy face, kicking the pile of books in the way. It ends up tumbling in Ryu's general direction.

"Ryu," Hayato calls, Saya in his arms and poking his cheek as he tries to catch her fingers. "She won't fail the entrance exams," he says with absolute certainty, and Ryu cocks an eyebrow. "She'll go to a good junior high and a good high school and a good college and –"

Ryu snorts. "Become a teacher?"

Hayato makes a sound, and Ryu smirks.

"She'll be an astronaut."

"Or an idol."

"A spy."

Ryu laughs. Saya squirms out of Hayato's hold and slips down like a pink slinky.

"She'll be brave," Ryu whispers, looking down as she crawls near him and looks at the scattered books, sits back heavily and latches with both hands on one that's too heavy for her to lift. He opens the cover for her. "Just like your mom."

Ryu doesn't turn to Hayato. But hears the sharp intake of breath, and knows he's glowing.

 

 

+

 

 

The girl doesn't stop smiling, not even as she talks them through the long list of wood swatches with food names, like paprika and espresso and vanilla white. They are only looking because Ryu had a free afternoon and Hayato's nice old lady supervisor from Wednesday's job gave him a large catalogue of baby items and babywear; there were utopian nurseries with tidy rows of toys and pale pastel green walls on every single page. They were nothing like the colourful clash and mess of Saya's room.

(Saya's room, that was actually Hayato's room, is slowly turning into a delicate place for her, and Ryu isn't going to bring up the fact that Hayato'll need to move sometime not so far into the future. Yet)

The white wood crib in front of them is pretty, but ridiculously expensive. Luckily, Saya scrunches up her nose and turns away.

They move on.

 

 

+

 

 

"I want her to show me when she wants a hug," Hayato mutters above the magazine. It has large sky blue letters with the word PARENTING printed on top of a large baby face.

Ryu sighs, and rolls his eyes.

Saya creeps on hands and knees, and begins to walk. A little. Not much. Ryu's back usually aches from bending over, larger hands holding hers as Hayato sits on the floor and waves any toy within his reach. She squeals and laughs, and Ryu lets go of her when she launches on a jerky stomp-trip-jump that ends when she crashes against Hayato's chest. She'll stand on her own, feet spread apart and legs stiff, arms extended, waiting for Ryu to hold her and then moving as if trying to shake him off. Ryu pretends he doesn't find it endearing.

She enjoys crayons now, uses markers for scribbling all over Ryu's notes. Sometimes he distracts her with her pink and purple cubes (they were more feminine than the usual ones, and Hayato thinks she needs some girly things in her life too). She stacks them up, throws them down, and stacks them again. Ryu looks up and glares when he has to dodge a stray missile, but she chuckles lightly and flails about, so Ryu ends up stacking blocks with her.

On the days he has to work, Hayato has become used to arriving home to find Saya on Ryu's lap, turning the pages of her one storybook with a concentrated look under her slightly furrowed brows, as if she understood anything from the large headlines above the drawings.

"Where's the unicorn?" he whispers and takes a seat on the couch, knees brushing against Ryu's shoulder, and she points to the large sparkly unicorn on that page and looks up at Hayato with a large accomplished grin.

Ryu laughs under his breath, twisting her locks of hair delicately in his fingers. She isn't a bald baby anymore, something Hayato had been dead worried about. Hayato pats her head, takes her from Ryu's lap when she starts to bounce up and down and call for _Toto- toto!"_.

It took them a while to work out _bababa_ meant bottle too.

 

 

+

 

 

When she started to wail _Ruru- ruru!_ for the first time, it also took them a moment, and a baby frown, to understand she was calling for Ryu.

(It could well have been that she was asking for her turtle because she kept calling and pointing at the plushie, while _looking_ at Ryu. But when Hayato handed it to her and she threw it at his face, it was clear Ryu had officially become the toy handler)

 

 

+

 

 

"A girl today got a bicycle for throwing a tantrum. It had purple tassels on the handle," Hayato comments, Saya held close to his chest. He seems troubled. "I want that, to give her anything she asks for. I want to buy her stuffed animals because she points at them. And dresses. And remote control cars and awesome action figures."

Ryu sighs, not really looking up. Hayato moves like a shadow in the living room, the low light coming from the lamp beside him all source of illumination in the room. It makes Ryu's eyes ache a little, struggling to make out the words in the paper.

The sofa moves beside him, near the tip of his toes, and Ryu looks up. Saya's pyjamas are too colourful against Hayato's plain white shirt; the red tiny wagons over the blue background manlier than perhaps a baby girl should have. Ryu glares at Hayato for always buying her blue and red stuff.

"Grow up, Hayato," he grunts as he removes his feet from under him, and ignores Hayato's frown. Saya is looking at him with large brown eyes that close lightly when he pokes her chubby cotton-soft cheek, the mini fist lying against Hayato's shoulder. "One of you will have to."

He doesn't see Hayato for days.

When he comes back, Hayato doesn't comment on the hypoallergenic pillow he brings with him. It is purple and has white tassels on the edges, a trail of sparkly things behind a rainbow butterfly sewn into it. Saya giggles, little fists closing around it and not letting go as she struggles to stand up with the aid of the low table.

The gemstones glitter with the midday sun, and Ryu does everything not to see Hayato's face.

 

 

+

 

 

"I just don't want to be Saya's useless old man, you know?"

Ryu stops trying to take the cube from her hand so Saya stops trying to squeeze the triangle into the star-shaped hole. He looks up, and Hayato is busy with the food, mashing some green goo they both know will end up splattered all over the table. Saya frowns, and looks up. She is looking at Hayato as if he were an idiot.

Hayato chuckles, humourless. "Sad, huh?"

Saya throws him the triangle shape. And the star. Ryu laughs.

"Stupid," he mutters, and carries Saya somewhere she can't make attempts on her dad's life with plastic neon toys.

Deep down, he wants to tell Hayato he'll never be Saya's useless old man. He does, later, wrapped in a bulky bedcover, the light from the lampposts outside the only thing giving away Hayato's embarrassment as he tells Ryu to shut up.

 

 

+

 

 

When Saya takes two real steps (one, really, because the other is a half-falling, half lurch-trip-jump reflex), Hayato beams and tells her she's the most awesome little girl in the world and she can be an astronaut now, or a spy, or a pirate.

"Or a teacher," he adds. "But only one that can kick ass. Like Yankumi or uncle Ryu."

Ryu would rather she didn't, but Hayato is practically shining and Saya's eyes disappear in her indulged tiny giggles when Hayato hugs her close to his chest and tickles her sides. Ryu wonders if his father ever looked like that; was ever this happy watching him grow, or if Ryu's first step-trip-lurch was frowned upon because Ryu couldn't yet run.

"Ryu!" Hayato calls, and he looks down. Hayato remains on the floor, Saya standing but rocking back and forth where she holds the edge of the couch and looks at Ryu in his now usual place, curled up with a book. "Let's celebrate!" Hayato nudges, and Ryu sighs when Hayato pokes him to uncurl his legs. "Take a picture, I'll get ice cream."

"You shouldn't spoil her so much," Ryu says, but Hayato waves dismissively and he only rolls his eyes, apathetic.

He still gets the camera.

They somehow get the three of them inside the frame, Saya's ice-cream-smeared face matching Hayato's and Ryu's stained shirts, small hand shapes printed in chocolate chip ice-cream. Her face is lit up with joy, and, in the photo, Hayato is receiving a spoonful of ice cream to his cheek as Ryu smirks.

Hayato frames it.

It has hung in the genkan ever since.

 

 

+

 

 

"You'll be her favourite uncle someday," Hayato smirks when he catches Ryu playing peek-a-boo with Saya with an unimpressed, and rather bored, look on his face.

Ryu snorts. But his smile is tiny and it matches the shiny bright sun behind them, the one they painted in the left corner of Hayato's bedroom.

"I already am," he replied, smugness thinly veiled as he hides again, and makes Saya crack up when he peeks from above the book.

 

 

+

 

 

Hayato is already there with Saya bathed and clean when Ryu arrives, after what feels like the longest day in the history of high school teaching. He's standing near the window, and Ryu joins him, a glass of water in his hand.

"How on earth," Hayato starts, moving amused eyes back at him, "did you ever jump off your balcony?"

Saya is playing with her turtle in his arms, but coils in sheer joy when Ryu ruffles her hair.

"Adrenaline," he answers automatically. Saya giggles and hands him the turtle plushie; it's all washed out now and the colours have faded after all the mouthing and chewing it has endured. Ryu takes it like radioactive waste, uttering a thin _thank you_ that makes Saya grin at him and press herself to Hayato's chest.

"Two broken ankles and a sprained wrist," Ryu adds.

"A sprained ankle," Hayato swiftly corrects. Only then, Ryu looks up, but Hayato isn't looking at him. He's long lost in memories. "The second time was a sprained ankle. You fell on Tsucchi and only sprained it."

Ryu chuckles. Saya begs for her toy back.

She promptly shoves it in Hayato's face.

 

 

+

 

 

It becomes clear once Ryu starts spending all his free time at Hayato's, even though it means three more train stations and not always having clean clothes (before he starts taking his laundry back and forth). Take and Hyuuga are amused. Tsucchi is concerned. Hayato looks at him aghast.

Ryu can't believe it's Hayato making the rational calls now.

In the end, it all comes down to dreading the thought of going back to his one room apartment, because his place is old and plain and there are no plushie missiles or crayon risks to save his work from. Because his futon is dusty and there are no dancing Anpanman pillows or toddler scents in the sheets.

He spends more time at Hayato's because otherwise he feels exhausted the next day, like he didn't get any sleep. Anxious because he may be missing all these new things Saya is learning, like he did when she first called Hayato _Toto_ and he wasn't there to snort.

"You two-" Tsucchi starts. And stops there, hands moving in the air a replacement for the lack of words. Ryu scowls at the bottom of his glass. "You two were always different. Like you were the only ones who understood each other."

Ryu finds it ironic.

Especially now, as he tilts his head to the side and frowns at Hayato in confusion.

"I don't want to ruin it for you," Hayato is saying, but it sounds like babbling to Ryu. He registers Hayato's hand running over his books, over his scrawled notes on a stack of exams and the tags at the edges of the book pages. "Not again."

He tampers down with indifference the familiar, warm anger that's bubbling up in him, purses his lips, and his voice grows several degrees colder.

"You never did before."

Hayato's big-eyed need of reassurance is on him, and he stretches, sighs. Picks up a freight train that made it out of the toy box; something they got when they noticed the place was too small to have Saya's endless collection of toys scattered everywhere all the time.

"We make our own decisions, and take responsibility," Ryu adds. His voice gives away nothing.

Hayato laughs. In the dimness of the cosy room, his face looks younger. Ryu wants to reach out and shove him, take the blanket he's crumpling against his chest from him, just out of sheer childishness.

"You're quoting her, you old man."

Instead, Ryu throws him the miniature train. And doesn't apologize for it.

 

 

+

 

 

The notification is addressed to Yabuki Hayato and Yabuki Kaori. Ryu's stomach twists painfully when he picks it up, and Hayato's smile vanishes instantly when he sees Ryu's gloomy worry.

"You got mail," he mutters, but Hayato has already snatched the envelope from his hand.

Ryu distinctly smells food and turns to find the oven on and the table set, and it's funny because they usually grab some microwave ramen when it's this late, and they don't need to get Saya to sit down and eat. Hayato's sigh is relieved, and Ryu nudges him in the side, nods towards the letter.

Hayato is dismissive. "Day-care. As soon as Saya was born, Kaori-"

He halts. It means nothing to Ryu, or it shouldn't. These is supposed to be good news.

Ryu frowns.

"I-"

"I don't care, Hayato," he replies, and drops his bag on the floor. Heavily. It pushes a doll's face into the rug. "But… what if -?"

"It won't happen," Hayato deadpans. He glares at Ryu as if he's offended him, as if this wasn't a possibility and this _Kaori_ couldn't barge in and claim Saya as hers and take her and all her toys and tiny cups with her. Hayato's situation is too precarious to hold the custody he has in a real trial, and the sole notion of it happening makes Ryu sick.

Hayato sits on the couch, flops down on it, and hides his face in his hands. His slumped shoulders make Ryu's stomach tighten. Ryu doesn't think about it when he settles his palm against his hair, runs his fingers over Hayato's scalp.

This isn't about them, or _this_ , but it suddenly is and everything is one big snowball crashing down on them both.

It isn't Hayato being upset about Ryu giving his second button to someone when in reality Ryu lost it; it's not Hayato glaring and clamming up when Ryu told him about Akado's nurse, how she was older than him and a co-worker and it meant nothing. This is big-eyed vulnerable Hayato asking him what all this is and being worried and confused, and confusing, all over again.

Ryu has been falling for too long to not know the answer.

"Saya?" he asks in a whisper, lets his other hand fall to Hayato's hair, and sighs, stands closer, knees apart beside Hayato's.

"At Taku's."

It's a soft whisper, smooth like Hayato's eyes, and he moves slow and deliberate, his other hand threading in Hayato's hair, making his head tilt in search of that warmth. Ryu focuses on his fingers, on the brief moment when Hayato closes his eyes, before opening them and staring right through him, so piercing and fierce he can read everything and nothing on Hayato's face. It's a promise that entails more now.

When Ryu leans forward and seals his lips over Hayato's, Hayato doesn't yell or freak out or push him away. His hands flatten over Ryu's sides, fingers sliding into his back pockets, and hooks his thumbs through Ryu's belt loops, pulling him down and forward. He hums hungrily at the back of his throat, pushing Ryu's mouth open with his tongue, and Ryu's hands slide down his face, cup his jawbone, knees pressed to either side of Hayato's thighs now because it's all about being closer, about the hands pressing into the curve of Ryu's backside and Hayato's hips pushing up, Ryu's knees digging into the sofa as he presses back. Hayato mewls quietly, and Ryu's face falls into the crook of his shoulder, biting sloppily down the curve of his neck. Hayato's skin is smooth and salty and Ryu shivers every time Hayato moves beneath him.

Ryu is clutching Hayato's shirt and gasps when Hayato slides inside his pants. His entire body goes limp against Hayato and he pants into the shell of his ear, hands moving and touching, a swelling sensation shooting up from his stomach and chest down to the tip of his toes. The warm spots Hayato is touching or has touched ignite with the memory of it, and he moans and clutches because he can't get close enough, can't _be_ close enough.

Hayato's face screws up into something else entirely; he's sweaty and glistening, and Ryu bites on his lower lip, kisses low husky words out of his mouth. He's so beautiful and real it throws Ryu all over the place, disoriented and lost, sliding neatly against him, and with every twitch of muscle and every gasping, shaking breath, he feels hot waves of need roll down his spine, right back to the pulse in his wrists, thrumming in dissonance with the blood throbbing at his temples.

Hayato grinds Ryu down into his lap and his back arches, lips searching out lips and hands clutching bare skin, mind on each twist of the wrist, on each shared shallow breath and the body pliant and open that is heavy and presses on him, grounds him to some cloudy spectrum where everything is warm and hot and Hayato is flushed perfectly slick against him, and Ryu isn't sure whether he's still free-falling or if he's finally hit bottom.

(He doesn't care either way)

 

 

+

 

 

Ryu watches Hayato wearily because Hayato is still stupid and unpredictable and hard-to-deal-with, and that hasn't changed even though they're both 30 now. He remembers mentioning that on his birthday and getting a crushed can thrown at his side.

But now it's more complicated than before. Before, there was no Saya then, no lingering menace of an ex-wife overseas. They don't have the luxury of recklessness now, and Ryu knows that; knows maybe it's best for Hayato not to open that door.

Of course, Hayato does.

"Here," he says, not looking at him. Saya clamps her mouth shut tight and avoids the green goo on the spoon Hayato holds with his other hand.

Ryu stares. First at the key on the creaky white table, then at Hayato's blatant avoiding eyes. Hayato is glaring.

"What?" Hayato snaps to the silence, spoon dangling dangerously far from the tray. Saya will throw a tantrum soon. "You'll need it, right?"

"Hayato –"

"Shut up."

Ryu does. But only because Saya knocks the green goo over when she puts her fist down against the edge of her bright yellow plate and it splashes everywhere, from Hayato's right eye to Ryu's hair.

(They have to keep similar plates away from her after that, because, smart as she is, she instantly relates green-goo-in-yellow-plates to must-cover-everyone-in-veggie-plaster.)

 

 

+

 

 

Hayato is selfish.

In the way he never questions his decisions or himself or tries on others' shoes. That's why he's still so hard on his father, and why he decided single-handedly that he was messing up Ryu's life, only to pull him back into it almost inevitably. How he used to decide they'd win a fight they most probably wouldn't, or how Saya's mother would never come back because he said so, and she said so, and Saya is better off never knowing her because she has Toto and Ruru to take care of her now.

Thirty years haven't changed that.

 

 

+

 

 

In the end, Ryu keeps the key. He's a little selfish too.

 

 

+

 

 

"Hayato," Ryu calls from where he's watching Saya play with her crayons. She has managed to draw a huge orange ball in the middle of the paper with green spots all over the empty space. It looks like a mutant tangerine. "Before I went to grad school, we hadn't talked for months."

Hayato glares at him from his spot. He's still wearing the clothes from the construction site, and Ryu scrunches up his nose and protectively pushes Saya further from him.

Ryu has always known Hayato is anything but _that_. He is past the part-time jobs he's hopped around ever since they finished high school, and way too charismatic, way too _good_ to be a nameless face in the crowd. He was pretty damned awesome at science, and once or twice Ryu had caught him, laptop open, with Googled websites of complicated things that Hayato snapped shut at once and swore they were pop-ups. Ryu never asked why Hayato tried so hard to look like anything but the amazing person he is.

He somehow regrets that.

"So?"

Ryu frowns. "You were so upset, but we weren't really-"

"I could _find_ you, when you were here," Hayato snaps. His neck is flushed red, and he has dirt caked on the tips of his hair. A crayon stabs Ryu when he doesn't react to Saya's calls.

"I knew you were around. Somewhere," Hayato mumbles later, and Ryu only catches his back as he moves to the bathroom.

 

 

+

 

 

It's cold outside, windy, and Hayato's mood matches the weather with precise accuracy. Ryu sets both bowls down, noodle soup steaming hot, and Hayato looks up. It takes them a moment's pause to smile, relax just a little, chairs scooting discreetly closer. A comfortable silence settles over them, only broken by the mumbles and sighs coming from the pack-and-play.

Ryu sighs, smiles with the added weight on his shoulder.

Tomorrow too will surely be cold.

(It's nothing but warm inside.)

 

 

+

 

 

Ryu finds a picture of this strange, half-assed, awkward wedding, when the cherry trees are almost all bare and leafless near the school. Hayato is the same, only grinning, hair tied in a ponytail. It's the first time he's _seen_ Saya's mom and she is gorgeous. Her smile isn't as bright though, and she hides in the shadow of a bouquet made of white roses; her nose is crooked, and Ryu's fingers itch to smooth over the clean arch of Saya's tiny nose.

There is a rather sour-looking older couple in one of the pictures, and Hayato tells him they wanted nothing to do with Saya either, not after Kaori left the country with a better job and a better boyfriend and a better _life_.

"When she left, they were so relieved. She wanted nothing to do with her," he mutters, and he sounds so angry, almost broken. And as shocked by this old knowledge as Ryu feels, because he couldn't walk out of Saya's life, now or never.

"The whole wedding was a mistake," Hayato says flatly, and looks away, tugging Saya tighter against him. She'd fallen asleep sometime between the rabbit singing and the fish dancing in the movie. It was all very nonsensical, but she likes nonsensical, as long as it's loud and colourful.

She's like Hayato that way.

Ryu turns the page. Kaori's blatantly pregnant belly stands out under the arctic white gown she's wearing, but they're both gentle and smiling in this one photo, hands around her bloated stomach, and Ryu's stomach chills and curls with unfriendly icy panic.

Hayato grabs the photo album and dumps it softly on the floor. He seems to sense Ryu's distress, because he stops toying with Saya's ribbons and looks at him. "It's in the past now," he whispers.

Ryu wants to ask, to argue and force him to make _sure_ , but Hayato's fingers curl around him and his eyes are asking him not to, _please_ , don't go there.

So he doesn't.

Ryu decides later he wants lots of photos of Saya doing silly baby things: sitting on a swing, rolling in a sandbox, jumping in puddles with bright yellow rubber boots. When he says she may want a brother or sister, Hayato looks at him as if he's gone crazy.

"You're free to have all the kids you want," he says above the nonsensical singing and Saya's high-pitched voice trying to harmonize with the TV. She's more tone deaf than Hayato.

As an afterthought, Hayato adds. "Don't you dare getting married."

 

 

+

 

 

Hayato also has a huge number of pictures of Ryu he tried unsuccessfully to hide. Even from that one dinner near Ryu's birthday when Yabuki-mama made a cake for him, the one that gave them both tummy pains because they ate it all in less than half an hour.

 

 

+

 

 

"Lay off, okay?!" Hayato shouts. He startles Saya, and she starts to tear up. Ryu swallows thickly as he takes it with his unimpressed frown, but Hayato is already with her, soothing and apologizing, and Ryu closes the book on his lap.

"Just leave it," Hayato mumbles darkly, and moves to the bedroom.

Ryu doesn't fight much these times, nor did he before, when asked to leave (or _stay_ ), but he never crossed his arms. So when Hayato tells him this is not his fight, he still pens a reference letter and hands it in, puts in a good word for him and trades almost all his hallway duties to the mornings.

"You know," Hayato mutters that night. He always sleeps with his feet curled up on top of the comforter; otherwise, he's too hot. "Ryu is a reptile." When Ryu had told him once he'd get sick doing that, he'd said the same thing, and Saya had made a high _gaaaah_ noise from her high chair that seemed to agree. Ryu had unconsciously glared at her even though they'd both known Hayato was lying: Ryu isn't cold-blooded.

"I miss your red hair," Hayato adds, as if that alone would pull them back to high school, as if it's his hair's fault they've grown out of their skins. The hand between their bodies is turned upwards.

Ryu sighs, pointedly looks past Hayato's shoulder to the upper edge of the pack-and-play that will soon be too small for Saya.

"You don't do it for yourself anymore," Ryu whispers. And settles his hand on top of Hayato's.

They were always warmer together.

 

 

+

 

 

Ryu used to pretend they were brothers as kids; that Taku was his to complain about, and it was all right to live among Yabuki-mama's food and a kotatsu that stayed out longer than it should have.

It's still out now, scattered with the leftovers they'd put in the microwave for too long. Saya is drooling all over his shirt, and they're watching a trashy comedy show that makes Hayato reach out and smooth his fingers over her back, sometimes low enough to catch Ryu's stomach, smoothing until the soft fleece of her blanket suit dissolves into Ryu's new cotton pyjamas. It's the warmest of feelings.

"Is she asleep?" Hayato murmurs, scoots closer.

Ryu nods. Hayato's couch is not large or very comfy by any means, not with a toddler added to the mix, but Ryu is warmer than he's been in ages, Saya's breath against his collarbones, and Hayato curled up against his other side, old checkered kotatsu blanket covering them both –

It feels like home.

 

 

+

 

 

Ice-cream covered faces greet him in the genkan. Unassuming, _happy_ faces. His keychain is one key lighter, and he's feeling knots in his stomach that have nothing to do with the suitcase full of books sitting beside him.

Hayato appears; pastel green apron tied around his waist, and Saya dashes like a small hurricane latching onto his legs. She doesn't drop on her butt when she attempts to run anymore, but that may be because she always runs with the intention of clinging to something.

"Okaeri!"

She is demanding to be picked up and Ryu complies, Hayato's low chuckles warning, _You spoil her too much_. There's a dry cloth in Hayato's hand and a tiny bright pink plate in the other, a clip holding his longer bangs up and off his forehead. He looks young and unassuming. _Happy_.

Ryu smiles down at the girl in his arms, showing him a large rainbow crayoned on white, white paper, and then over at Hayato in the genkan. Hayato raises an eyebrow, twirls the bright pink plate in his hand. It's ridiculous.

But it's _home_.

"Tadaima," he whispers. And teaches Saya how to help set the table.

 

  


**Fin**

  
  



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